Quite the mindfuck, no?
Since when?
Seriously, I think you’re getting bizarrely hung up on the definition of the word “reward”. A “reward” is just an “earned good thing”. So, take away the earning, and it’s just a good thing.
So, what you’re saying when you say “ensuring rewards get earned” is good, is that “doing good things for no reason” is bad.
Putting aside the fact that that is mind-bogglingly nonsensical, what it is basically saying is that God is not benevolent - it’s that he’s rigidly just. He’s the karma god - all scales must be balanced, all good deeds rewarded and all bad deeds punished and not a single unearned second in heaven granted ever.
The thing to note about this is, it still doesn’t justify suffering, because the reward earned is necessarily not better than the “reward” of not undergoing the suffering in the first place. (If it were, the ‘extra’ rewards would be unearned, and break your bizarre anti-benevolence rule.) So, the suffering is still pointless and unjustified, despite the standard POE argument not applying due to the god being non-benevolent.
I agree. Morality is a social construct built on top of an instinctual substrate that sets limits on what we as human beings will tolerate as a definition of good and evil.
What I was trying to emphasize was that morality requires societal consensus for its existence. You can’t unilaterally decide on your own idiosyncratic definition of right and wrong, any more than you can unilaterally decide on your own idiosyncratic definition of various words.
Glory. 
straggler, perhaps you missed my earlier question, so I’ll repeat it.
Please tell me why I should believe in that the Lord of Hosts rather than Wotan.
I don’t know what God desires for you.
Whether there is “evidence” of an ultimate reward is a separate discussion.
Do you have an answer for my question, straggler? Why is the deity you worship–the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom I referred to as the Lord of Hosts earlier–any more likely to exist, or worthy of reverence, than Wotan, Mithra, or Anu?
Then… that’s what happens? Not sure what answer you’re looking for, here.
This earthly life is a test. A short test. Incredibly short, actually. If you use an infinite time scale, your 90 year existence (if you’re lucky) won’t even register as a blip.
Yes, it does seem strange.
I’m not saying that, and I can’t even see how you’ve drawn that conclusion.
Being rigidly just is incompatible with being benevolent?
You’re confusing rewards given in this life with the Ultimate Reward. Not every good deed gets a reward in this life, and not ever bad deed gets punished in this life. This is part of the test. Ultimate Justice awaits on Judgement Day.
Believe whatever you like!
But you know that it’s impossible for me to be, do or think anything he doesn’t desire.
For clarity, replace the word desire with will, and the answer is yes.
It’s the inevitable conclusion to be drawn from saying that rewards must be earned. Look at the inverse - what does it mean if rewards are not earned? If rewards are just given, for no reason at all? Why, that’s what’s called a “gift” - a benevolent handout.
To state that rewards must be earned is exactly synoymous to saying that unearned gifts are verboten. If it wasn’t, God could give us all the “Ultimate Reward” as a gift, without putting anybody through even a single trial.
By the usual definition of justice, and the usual definition of benevolence, yes. Justice is what happens when you get what you deserve, and only what you deserve. It’s not just a matter of making sure that people get punished enough - letting somebody off the hook when they have committed a crime is also a travesty of justice.
So, justice is what happens when everybody gets exactly what they deserve. No worse - and no better. (Notably, under this rule it’s impossible to merit heaven, because there are no good deeds meritous enough to earn it.) Benevolence, on the other hand, particularly *omni-*benevolence, is all about doing what’s best for people - whether they deserve it or not. It’s unjudgemental. It’s merciful. And mercy is specifically a thwarting of justice.
So yes. An omni-benevolent god would forgive a man all of his sins (Jesus or no Jesus). A rigidly just god would require that a man pay for all of his own sins (Jesus or no Jesus). There is no middle ground*.
- and no, Jesus is not a middle ground - the jesus sacrifice requires a transferrence of punishment, which is a travesty of justice, and an unjust and unmerited blood sacrifice by Jesus which no benevolent god could stand. The only sort of God that could accept a Jesus-style scapegoat sacrifice would be a bloodthirsty rage-god, whose general rage could be sated by the one blood sacrifice (allowing everyone else to escape his rage-driven punishment). That is, the God of Jesus is the one that makes you throw virgins into volcanos to stave off their eruption. Justice and benevolence literally cannot have anything to do with it.
Slapping “Ultimate” in front of words doesn’t change the fact that the reward of heaven cannot ever be earned, and thus would be a travesty of justice no matter how Ultimate that justice might be. (And whether the rewards are in this life or not are irrelevent - the just god doesn’t mind waiting, as long as the reward/punishment is proportional to the good deed/crime, and the omnibenevolent god of course cannot stand the “test” at all, and cannot choose to have it happen if there is any alternative.)
Then God wills all evil. God willed the holocaust, God wills child rape and God wills Rob Schneider movies. How can an omnimax God will evil?
ETA if everything I do is God’s will, then how can I possibly fail the test? I can drink the blood of infants and still pass with flying colors. There’s no way to NOT do God’s will. I’m in like Flynn inisde those pearly gates.
I do have one question – about those 72 virgins…can I have sluts instead? They should also be bisexual.
That bastard.
Garbage. 90 years is 90 years, and is a long time regardless of how much or how little future there is. Your argument is a twisted one that justifies any evil one may want to commit; after all, murdering one person is nothing compared to killing billions, so that murder is trivial, right ? Which is exactly the attitude arguments like yours are designed to create.
Are you saying that it matters not whether I believe in the Lord of Hosts, Wotan, Mithra, Athena, and so forth? If that is so,w hat is the point of this thread? If that is not so, why are you not admonishing me to believe in your God? Do you wish me to go to Hell for an eternity of suffering?
I’m not sure how this relates to the conversation at hand.
These discussions are always tricky. This type of discussion begins with "If God is then {topic for discussion} The train of thought and argument has to be consistent with that supposition. So, with that in mind, I didn’t say suffering was completely inconsequential.
If we are supposing something like the Christian God then he made the game and is in charge of how it plays out, so yeah, we would be under some obligation to follow his rules. It seems to me it’s basically the same with or without God. We choose based on perceived consequences.
Not to be sidetracked from my original point, which is, the argument that suffering and/or the POE means God cannot be Omnimax, I reject it as illogical for the reasons I already explained.
It certainly appears that way from a human perspective but lacking omniscience how are we to judge the possibility for God. The question seems to be, “Why would a benevolent God allow so much suffering when omnipotence means he could prevent it all?” or “What is the purpose of creation and the perception of duality and choice?” {rather than bliss and no suffering whatsoever} We don’t know. So we lack some crucial knowledge to lay claim to a logical conclusion about what suffering means about God.
I’ll start here. Let’s have one discussion. This thread is a "If God is then {topic of discussion} kind of thread. We have the discussion by supposing something like the Christian God exists and what appears to be logical or not from that supposition. So, no I’m not going to spend any time showing there is an afterlife or that we are spiritual beings. I haven’t made that argument. I’m discussing points of logic if we suppose that’s true. To continue we have to stay consistent with that supposition.
Incorrect. How do we, not being omniscient, argue what is needless in comparison to a being that is omniscient? We can accurately say, “I don’t see any purpose in this suffering” and that’s all. We can’t logically claim God can’t possibly have one.
Once again let’s have one conversation. Evidence has nothing to do with this one. If we’re supposing a creator and master of the universe God then granting him qualities such as omniscience, and omnipotence, makes him pretty unknowable.
Not being omniscient I couldn’t say. You seem to be assuming that it’s not voluntary and God makes spiritual beings experience the torture of being human against their protests. Their’s no reason to assume that. Why do humans want to simulate being gangsters or bloody wars that they wouldn’t want to be “real”?
Here’s where the mixing of perspectives makes these conversations derail.
I asked before, if your kid wants to experience something and you know they can’t really be hurt {since they are spiritual beings not physical ones} and the perfectly safe experience will teach them something about perspective, in what way would it violate the principle of omnibenevolence?
Why do a test when you know the results ahead of time?
According to Genesis the punishment for sin was death, not an eternity of suffering. That idea came later I wonder if it came about when people could see good people suffering and bad people prospering and thought maybe they would be punished in an other life.